Changes

:If the agency has sufficient in-house technical expertise, they may wish to produce and maintain the GTFS feed themselves. Several of the industry-standard scheduling software packages from vendors such as Trapeze<ref>[http://www.trapezegroup.com/ Trapeze Group Limited]</ref>, HASTUS <ref>[http://www.giro.ca/en/products/hastus/index.htm Giro, Inc. "HASTUS - Transit scheduling and operations."]</ref> , Connexionz<ref>[http://www.connexionz.us/home Connexionz Limited. "Smart Transit Solutions."]</ref>, and Mentor Engineering <ref>[http://www.mentoreng.com/products/streets-transit/streets-schedule/schedule.html Mentor Engineering. "Transit Scheduling Software."]</ref> can often export agency data into the GTFS format, facilitating the GTFS creation & maintenance process. However, agencies should not necessarily assume that the output of these tools produces perfect GTFS data, as agencies have indicated that they often still need to perform manual data processing on the GTFS data exported from these tools before it will be acceptable for application use <ref>[http://ntl.bts.gov/lib/34000/34000/34053/FDOT_BDK85_977-12_rpt.pdf Sean Barbeau, Nevine Labib Georggi, and Philip Winters (2010). "Travel Assistance Device (TAD) -- Deployment to Transit Agencies," National Center for Transit Research.]</ref>.

:For agencies who do not have access to sophisticated scheduling software, there are a variety of open-source and vendor-based tools that can be used for creating and maintaining GTFS data. One free spreadsheet-based toolis the XLS Tools for Google Transit by Bob Heitzman<ref>[https://sites.google.com/site/rheitzman/ Bob Heitzman. "XLS Tools for Google Transit."]</ref>, which were repackaged as “GTFS Builder” by the Rural Transit Assistance Program <ref>[http://www.nationalrtap.org/public/WebApps/GTFSBuilder.aspx National Rural Transit Assistance Program. "GTFS Builder."]</ref>. OpenPlans, a nonprofit 501(c)3 that produces open-source civic software, started an open-source web-based GTFS Editing Tool that is now maintained by Conveyal <ref>[https://github.com/conveyal/gtfs-editor Conveyal. "GTFS Editor."]</ref>. For agencies without high-quality bus stop inventories, the open-source GTFS-OpenStreetMap Synchronization tool (GO-Sync) can help leverage crowd-sourced improvements of their GTFS bus stop inventory<ref>[https://github.com/CUTR-at-USF/gtfs-osm-sync Khoa Tran, Edward L. Hillsman, S. Barbeau, and M. A. Labrador (2011), "GO-Sync- A Framework to Synchronize Crowd-Sourced Mapping Contributions from Online Communities and Transit Agency Bus Stop Inventories," in ITS World Congress, Orlando, Florida, USA, October 16, 2011.]</ref>. The open-source mobile app TransitWand<ref>[http://transitwand.com/ Conveyal. "TransitWand"]</ref> can also help when in the data collection process when creating a new GTFS dataset. There are also many educational resources available online from the transit developer community for agencies interested in creating a GTFS feed<ref>[http://code.google.com/p/googletransitdatafeed/wiki/OtherGTFSTools Google Transit Data Feed. "Other GTFS Tools."]</ref> <ref>[https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/google-transit-partner-support Google, Inc. "Google Transit Partner Support Google Group."]</ref>. Remix<ref>[http://getremix.com/ Get Remix Team. "Get Remix"]</ref> is a vendor-based tool for quickly sketching out transit routes and generating GTFS data. A list of vendors that provide self-service products and services for GTFS creation and maintenance can be found [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Gc9mu4BIYC8ORpv2IbbVnT3q8VQ3xkeY7Hz068vT_GQ/pubhtml here]. If you'd like to add a vendor/product to this list, please use [https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1XZl1cHDh9NUl9r7Eq-j9RuwVJlfjgPE8IBOb54oe138/viewform this form]

In order to create and maintain GTFS, it is necessary to develop an understanding of the specification. Several [[GTFS training materials]] are available.

*'''Outsource'''

:Vendors such as Trillium Solutions, Inc. <ref>['http://www.trilliumtransit.com/blog/ Trillium Solutions, Inc.]</ref>, TransitEditor<ref>[http://www.transiteditor.com/index.php?q=en/home TransitEditor. "TransitEditor."]</ref>, and Next Insight Transportation Software<ref>[http://nextinsight.com/services.php Next Insight Transportation Software. "Conductor."]</ref> provide tools and services that can aid agencies in formatting and maintaining their data in GTFS format, ranging from online tools that are operated by the agency to a full service model where the vendor creates the GTFS data for the agency. A list of vendors that provide full-service products and services for GTFS creation and maintenance can be found [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Gc9mu4BIYC8ORpv2IbbVnT3q8VQ3xkeY7Hz068vT_GQ/pubhtml here]. If you'd like to add a vendor /product to this list, please use [https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1XZl1cHDh9NUl9r7Eq-j9RuwVJlfjgPE8IBOb54oe138/viewform this form]

:The cost for a transit agency to hire a vendor or consultant to create GTFS data is usually around $200-$500 per route, depending on the level of effort required<ref> [http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/MassTrans/Docs-Pdfs/CoordinatedPlng/google.feasibility.study.pdf Northern California Google Transit Feasibility Study] </ref>. Level of effort is determined by the number of stops, complexity and variation of the routes and schedules, and the availability and quality of existing stop location, schedule, and route alignment data.